This helped me build the mental model necessary for more advanced Git operations like rebasing, cherry-picking, and resetting. It made me willing to use Git multiple times per day, for a sustained period of time. I had two false starts with Git, where I failed to get proficient enough, quickly enough to truly incorporate version control into my daily work. These people may feel like they should work in the shell, even if it leads to Git-avoidance, frequent mistakes, or limiting themselves to a small set of ~3 Git commands. I sometimes encounter people who feel it’s “better” to use command line Git, but for very ill-defined reasons. No one can tell whether you use the command line or a GUI when they look at your Git history or your GitHub repo.

Work with Git in whatever way makes you most effective.įeel free to revisit your approach over time or to use different approaches for different tasks or in different settings. Try the operation again at least once before doing any further troubleshooting.Ĩ.3 No one is giving out Git Nerd merit badges Very rarely, both clients will scan the repo at the same time and you’ll get an error message about. You can literally do one operation from the command line, do another from RStudio, and another from GitKraken, one after the other, and it just works. The visual overview given by your Git client can also be invaluable for understanding the current state of things, even when preparing calls to command line Git.įantastic news: because all of the clients are just forming and executing Git commands on your behalf, you don’t have to pick one. But the more powerful your Git client is, the less often this happens. I use this often for simple operations, but you probably want another, more powerful one as well.įair warning: for some tasks, you must use the command line.

RStudio offers a very basic Git client via its Git pane. But they make the experience more pleasant because they reduce the amount of “command line bullshittery” 1 and provide a richer visual representation of the current state. A Git client and an integrated development environment, such as RStudio, are not necessary to use Git or R, respectively. Git and your Git client are not the same thing, just like R and RStudio are not the same thing. Some may prefer to do Git operations via a client with a graphical interface.

This interface is not appealing for everyone. “Git” is really just a collection of individual commands you execute in the shell (Appendix A). 8.1 What is a Git client? Why would you want one?

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